How to Drive Decarbonisation Through Rigorous Real-Time Accounting

The current dominant approaches to carbon reporting are top-down disclosures, produced mainly to comply with external presentation demands. They do not identify timely opportunities for individual entities to reduce their GHG footprint through their product-design, operational, and sourcing decisions.

Professor Karthik Ramanna (Oxford) will present the E-liability approach to carbon accounting (jointly developed with Professor Robert Kaplan of Harvard), which is an algorithm that enables entities to accurately measure in real-time the emissions they produce (Scope 1) and those produced by all their suppliers (Scope 2 + upstream Scope 3). 

Several major organisations, including BMW, Giti Tires, Global Connect, Heidelberg Materials, Hitachi Energy, Oxford University Hospitals, Stanford University, and Tata Steel, are currently exploring how to apply E-Liability accounting to drive decarbonization of their direct and supplier operations. The E-liability approach also extends to rigorous accounting for offsets (“E-assets”), and, together, the E-ledgers generated provide customers, investors, and other stakeholders accurate and auditable information to hold entities accountable to NetZero pledges and SBTi targets.

At this workshop, business and sustainability leaders will learn how this powerful framework can enable better strategic choices to reduce an organisation's emissions. Finance professionals will understand how existing financial-accounting processes can be leveraged to create accurate and auditable environmental (or E-) reporting.